SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Jerry Rice reaches over his desk, grabs a black hat with “G-O-A-T” emblazoned on the front in white letters, pulls the hat down just above his eyebrows and sits back in his black leather office chair. Now the Hall of Fame receiver is ready to discuss his greatest performance.
But when the first question about the events of Monday, Dec. 18, 1995, is asked, Rice says he doesn’t remember much.
It has been almost 25 years since Rice’s San Francisco 49ers beat the Minnesota Vikings 37-30 at Candlestick Park in a game in which Rice put on a 14-catch, 289-yard, three-touchdown tour de force in front of the world.
To jog his memory, Rice is reminded of his gaudy stats and shown highlights from the game over Zoom. But it’s his one blemish of the night, a second-quarter fumble, that kicks Rice’s memory into overdrive. The fumble not only helps him place the game but also reminds him of why he might not hold his Monday Night Football record for receiving yards with much reverence.
“You would think that’s the perfect game, right?” Rice said. “With all the catches, with all the touchdowns and stuff like that. Then you look at that film the next day, you see that fumble. … Man, I wanted to have that perfect game. I fumbled the ball. As football players, we’re always looking for that perfect game. We’re looking for that. I would always go back and find something on film where I could have done better. You just brought back some bad memories.”
Yes, as we near the 25th anniversary of Rice’s top statistical outing, one miscue keeps this from being a completely pleasant walk down memory lane.
That, of course, doesn’t mean it’s not worth remembering. The performance stands as the most receiving yards and second-most receptions Rice had in a game in his career. It’s the most receiving yards by a player on Monday Night Football and the most receiving yards by a player 33 years or older.
It’s a show even the losing side remembers a quarter-century later.
“Jerry Rice had some great performances throughout his career,” then-Vikings quarterback Warren Moon said, “and that was probably one of his best.”
Mr. Monday Night
Other than the postseason, there was no bigger stage than Monday Night Football in 1995. For Rice, it provided his family in Mississippi — and the world beyond — a chance to watch him do what he did best.
“That Monday night game, you send a message to the entire world,” Rice said. “Because Monday night, only two teams are playing. This is your opportunity to send that message, saying if you face the San Francisco 49ers, you better be ready. Because we’re gonna give you guys everything. We are going to play our best football. And it’s gonna be hard to stop us.”
This game came with some intriguing storylines. Aside from the Cowboys and Packers, the Vikings had been one of the Niners’ greatest NFC challengers, and future Hall of Fame receiver Cris Carter would be on the other side.
Rice had established himself as the best receiver in the league, but he was well aware of Carter, whom he believed had the NFL’s best hands. This game meant a little something extra for Rice, but the opposite was true, too.
“If you know Cris Carter, you know he’s [one of] the most competitive people,” Moon said. “… He wanted to be known as one of the upper-echelon receivers, and Jerry already had that title. So whenever you’re going up against the best like that and you’re trying to solidify yourself and your history and all that, you’re gonna want to play good on that type of atmosphere.”
The atmosphere was hard to top. Monday night at Candlestick had become a Bay Area tradition, and the Niners embraced the stage.
“We were so accustomed to being in an important game every week, so Monday night was just, it kind of felt like the appropriate focus that we wanted to have,” Niners quarterback Steve Young said. “Jerry appreciated a national audience because Jerry was somebody that worked hard, and he loved to show his stuff on national TV.”
‘Act like you’re Jerry Rice’
To this day, most NFL practice jerseys come with generic numbers and don’t match the color of the upcoming opponent. But ahead of the Monday night game against Rice and the 49ers, the Vikings had a special something prepared for third-year receiver Qadry Ismail.
“You had a red No. 80 jersey, and it was like ‘Oh, OK, I’m Jerry right now. Let me get some of this, I’m Jerry,'” Ismail said. “In your mind, you would kind of transform yourself and act like you’re Jerry Rice.”
In trying to do his best impersonation, Ismail studied Rice tape closely and noted the details that made Rice the most dominant receiver in the league.
Ismail marveled at Rice’s ability to create separation on simple concepts such as a Z drive, a shallow crossing route former 49ers coach Bill Walsh made a staple of his offense. On tape, Rice would run the route and throw his hands up to ask for the ball. In practice, Ismail would mimic not only the route but also Rice’s method of calling for the ball.
On Rice’s deep comeback route, Ismail noted that Rice would push up the field about 18.5 to 19 yards before coming back to the ball, whereas most receivers were running 15 or 16 yards before turning around.
Ismail even learned that in practice, Rice would finish every catch in the end zone. Ismail did the same.
“That’s what Jerry was going to do,” Ismail said. “Obviously, we gave them a very good look — to the point where they were so mesmerized by it, we couldn’t stop him in the real deal.”
Then-Vikings defensive coordinator Tony Dungy spent the week hammering home the importance of knowing where Rice would be at all times. He told his defenders to find Rice as soon as they broke the huddle, call out where he was and then, when he ran his routes, do everything possible to keep Rice in front of them.
On the Niners’ side, the game plan wasn’t much different than it would be any other week. They had already proven that they could move the ball on anyone, and they knew Dungy wanted to force them to be deliberate in how they moved down the field.
“We certainly had tremendous respect for Tony and what they did defensively,” former Niners offensive coordinator Marc Trestman said. “But we kind of had the philosophy that we were just going to do what we were going to do.”
‘Basically, Jerry Rice was unstoppable’
Moon had a ritual in which he would take a couple of warm-up throws on the sideline whenever the Vikings’ defense got to third down, thinking that a punt and a possession would soon follow.
On that Monday night, Moon found himself consistently standing up to get ready and then sitting back down. That’s because every time it seemed that the Vikings were about to get a stop, Rice and the Niners would convert to keep the drive alive.
“Basically, Jerry Rice was unstoppable,” Moon said. “And it just seemed like I couldn’t get on the field.”
After a three-and-out on the first possession, the Niners’ offense got into gear when Rice caught a 19-yard pass on third-and-9 with about 11 minutes left in the first quarter. What followed was an avalanche of points and yards, including an 8-yard touchdown — on, what else, Z drive — that put the first points on the board.
Within six minutes, the Niners scored twice more, including a 46-yarder to Rice. After watching the first few drives on a recent afternoon, Rice recalled specifics of individual plays.
He said the 46-yard touchdown came on a post route with a “Dino” stem, which asked him to release at top speed vertically, turn like he was headed on a corner route and then break back to the post route, leaving the cornerback on the outside. Once he caught the ball, Rice had three defenders around him and immediately had just one thought.
“Get downhill,” Rice said. “That’s the only thing I’m thinking about. Once I make that catch, I’m exploding straight downhill, and I’m able to sort of, like, split those guys and get into the end zone.”
After the Vikings responded with 10 unanswered points, Rice struck again for a 31-yard touchdown on a seam route on which he knew he’d have to brace for a big hit from Vikings safety Orlando Thomas.
Young put it in the perfect spot, Rice hauled it in, and Thomas threw up his hands in exasperation.
“It’s one of those things where you can’t worry about the hit or anything like that,” Rice said. “The most important thing is that the ball is going to protect you and also that your quarterback is not going to put you in harm’s way. I don’t know who 43 is right now, but he’s like, ‘How do we stop this guy?'”
The man who covered him
In 1994, Alfred Jackson Jr. was playing wide receiver for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League. One year later, he was splitting right cornerback duties for the Vikings with Dewayne Washington.
As a converted receiver, Jackson admired Rice, but that night in 1995, he faced the unenviable task of trying to slow Rice down. Jackson was nervous, considering that far more accomplished corners had tried and failed against Rice.
The first thing Jackson noticed facing Rice? How he made every play look the same, whether it was a run or a pass. That made it difficult for Jackson to attack Rice, especially once he got rolling and the Vikings adjusted.
None of it mattered, though.
“We practiced this one play all week: ‘Hey, when he’s in the slot, this is what he’s gonna run,'” Jackson said. “So I’m in the slot on him, and I can hear them on the sideline, ‘Get outside, get outside.’ I’m like, ‘Damn, I’m outside.’ So I get outside. What does he do? Run inside for first down.
“Him and Steve, it’s almost like they know each other. … And I swear it was like when they kept saying, ‘Get outside, get outside.’ They must have looked at each other and were like, ‘We’re going inside.’ Sure enough, that’s what he did.”
With Rice and Young locked in, Jackson found himself in chase mode for most of the night. That isn’t a good thing in most cases, but in one memorable instance, it was.
Leading 27-17 with three-and-a-half minutes left in the first half, Young hit Rice over the middle in stride about 18 yards downfield. As Rice accelerated up the field, Jackson chased him, grabbing at Rice’s collar with his left arm and swinging his right arm in desperation. Jackson poked the ball loose, and Thomas pounced on it at Minnesota’s 37.
Watching it again, Rice can’t hide his disappointment.
“It’s hard to accelerate when you are carrying something,” Rice said. “Most sprinters, they use their arms to really accelerate. And that guy, he just made a great play on the ball, and he was able to pop it out. I’ve got to be able to protect that ball.”
On an otherwise forgettable night, the forced fumble remains one of the highlights of Jackson’s career.
“Even in my hometown of Tulare, California, all my family and friends, that was the first thing they’d say is, ‘Man, you made Jerry Rice fumble,'” Jackson said.
‘I see why he’s the GOAT’
0:42
While running up Jerry Rice’s legendary hill, Peyton Manning shares a hilarious anecdote about when his Colts played Rice’s 49ers. For more Peyton’s Places, sign up for ESPN+.
Although the Vikings stayed close, Young pulled off some late-game magic to give San Francisco the victory. It was a high-octane battle between two elite offenses with big numbers all over the box score.
Rice, as he so often did, stole the show.
“We had no answer for Jerry Rice that night,” Jackson said. “It was almost an awe of what he did. It was like, ‘Wow, I see why he’s the GOAT.'”
In his final Monday night game with the Seahawks on Dec. 6, 2004, Rice, then 42, went for 145 yards and a touchdown against Dallas. It remains the only 100-yard receiving game by a player age 40 or older.
Rice still holds the record for games played (45), receptions (254), receiving yards (4,029) and receiving touchdowns (34) on Monday night.
Through all of it, he never really reflected on what he accomplished. He was too busy chasing the elusive perfect game.
“It was a good night,” Rice said. “But still, that one fumble.”
